The Advent Calendar of Great Holiday Movies: Day 22 "Home Alone"

The pre-Christmas Day season of Advent is upon us. Here at SeedSing we love the chocolaty goodness of getting a piece of candy once a day until we get to open our presents. As our gift to you we will present a great movie associated with the holiday season. Many will be awesome, some will be extra awesome. Enjoy.

Day 22: “Home Alone”

Opened Doors: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, Day 15, Day 16, Day 17, Day 18, Day 19, Day 20, Day 21

The final few days before Christmas can get quite hectic. Now imagine you are planning to take your whole family overseas for a fabulous holiday getaway. The normal hectic becomes an uncontrollable kind of hectic. You have to navigate through your massive suburban home, your spouse is not helping, and a few of your kids are being annoying jerks as you make sure everyone is packed and ready to go. Sounds dreadful, right? Well it becomes a whole lot worse when half way over the Atlantic Ocean you realize that one of your kids was left in your sprawling house all alone for Christmas.

Released in November of 1990, “Home Alone” came out of the gate and was instantly a holiday classic. It made a young Macaulay Culkin a star, Joe Pesci and Daniel Heard created the modern template for comedic bumbling criminals, and it made us all cry when the old man was reunited with his wife. The elaborate traps set by Kevin were ingenious and gruesome at the same time (what would really happen with those traps?) The entire Tom and Jerry nature of the back half of the film is glorious. Yet the most important thing we all learned from “Home Alone” is that a mother that forgets her child is really not that bad of mom.

Watch Catherine O’Hara’s performance as mother Kate McCallister in “Home Alone” and wonder why the excellent actress has not won an Academy Award yet. O’Hara takes a thankless role, one of a mother who leaves her young child home alone as she gallivants off to Paris, and makes the audience sympathize with her struggle to get back to her helpless child. Along the way Kate runs into many obstacles, but it is the angel like John Candy who reminds the distraught mom that kids are resilient, hell he left one in a mortuary one time so how bad could Kate’s son be? In the end Kate, alone herself, makes back by Christmas Day to be with her ingenious, and maybe psychotic, son. In the end Kevin had an adventure, learned a lesson, and Kate went from being the worst mom, moved heaven and earth, and become an adequate mom, With that a holiday classic film was brought into the pop culture.

The weekend before Christmas is one of most hectic times of the entire holiday season. The shopping malls are like a thunder dome, the airports are filled with self centered mobs, and our own homes devolve into chaos due to uncooperative spouses and children. Things tend to get forgotten. But if the thing forgotten is your genius, semi-psychopathic, child, the power of a mother’s love will always save the season. Also, a polka playing John Candy is always a welcome helper on the way back home.

RD

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. What is better than being home alone and stopping inept criminals for Christmas? Listen to Patton Oswalt destroy the terrible song “The Christmas Shoes”.

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